


Impact

by wren_rw



Category: Ride or Die (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, description of injury, tw car crash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26092585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wren_rw/pseuds/wren_rw
Summary: Ellie. In an accident. Ellie, who he hasn’t spoken to for months, Ellie, who he hasn’t stopped thinking about since she stormed out of his life, all hell hath no fury.Just like that, there’s not enough oxygen in all of Los Angeles to fill his lungs.
Relationships: Colt Kaneko/Main Character (Ride or Die)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Impact

“Hey, Vince- did you run the diagnostics on that Nissan?” 

A deep voice booms from beneath the hood of a sports car, thick with russian vowels. “On it, Boss. Looks like alternator failure.” 

“Oh, great.” Colt hides a smirk behind the rim of his mug, taking a deep swig of coffee. “Have fun with that.” 

Vince laughs- a thunderous, mighty sort of sound, and flips his boss the bird. 

“You don’t pay us enough to take that lip, sir.” This time, it’s a thin young woman perched on top of the cherry-picker, dark curls piled on top of her head. She’s got the coy sort of demeanor of someone who knows they’re playing with fire.

“I don’t pay _you_ at all, Martinez. You work on commission. You want a raise, go ahead off your ass and get one.” 

Laughter and wolf-whistles break out all across the garage, a few hecklers elbowing the woman playfully in the side. She shoves them off, sticking out her tongue in childish defiance. 

It’s somewhere around that point that the mechanic wheels himself out from under a new model, pulling a headphone from his ear. “Hey, Boss- sorry to interrupt, but isn’t that your phone?”

Sure enough, the room quiets enough for the ringing to be heard from behind the door to Colt’s office. 

The man excuses himself and pulls the door closed behind him, before leaning back against his desk to take the call. 

He’s met with the sound of faded sirens and a woman’s voice, clear and impersonal. 

“Is this Colt Kaneko speaking?”

That’s his first premonition that something’s gone wrong. Colt narrows his eyes, rereading the unidentified phone number on his screen before bringing the device back to his ear. “That depends on who’s asking.” 

The woman forges on as if she hadn’t heard him, as if she’s speaking from a well-rehearsed script. 

“Hello, Mr. Kaneko. I'm calling from the UCLA Medical Center on behalf of Eleanor Wheeler. I’m afraid there’s been an accident...” 

Colt goes deaf. The sudden roaring in his ears drowns out all coherent thought. _Accident_. The woman’s still speaking, but her voice is underwater. 

_Ellie_. _In an accident._ _Ellie_ , who he hasn’t spoken to for months, _Ellie_ , who he hasn’t stopped thinking about since she stormed out of his life, all hell hath no fury. 

Just like that, there’s not enough oxygen in all of Los Angeles to fill his lungs. “... Mr. Kaneko? Are you there?”

It’s a miracle when the words finally make their way past the swelling in his throat. “Yeah. How..” Colt can’t make himself form the question, screws his eyes shut against the drumbeat in his skull. “Is she.. ” She’s okay. _Tell me she’s okay._

The woman hesitates for a brief, dangerous moment, and Colt can feel himself rocking on a cliff’s edge, a breath from falling hard into cold, dark water. 

“She was conscious when she arrived, but you’ll have to get more information on her condition from the-” 

The line goes dead before she has the chance to finish her sentence. 

. . .

“Everything alright, Boss?

Colt doesn’t bother with a helmet as he slings himself over his bike. "Watch the shop. Don’t call until I say so.” 

That’s the only explanation that the newest Mercy Park Crew is offered. 

Colt’s bike is roaring past main street the second that the engine kicks to life. 

He thunders down the 405, city-lights blurring into vibrant streaks of color. He barely hears the drivers who cuss him out as he swerves through rush-hour traffic, cutting a thirty minute commute into twenty minutes, into fifteen, into ten. 

His feet hit the ground before he’s even pulled into a full stop, and the bike connects with the pavement with a sickening crunch. 

Colt still feels as if he’s hurtling through space, bracing himself for impact. 

He doesn’t lose his momentum until he’s braced against the receptionist’s desk, deaf to the indignant cries of those in line behind him. 

The woman must recognize his voice from their phone call, because she doesn’t waste his time. He barely catches wind of the room number before he’s down the hall to emergency care. 

_111\. 112._ The room markers blur together. Everything is white. The fluorescent lights are nearly blinding. _113\. 114. 115._ His ears are full of cotton, the only sound in his awareness the thundering of his heart. 

Colt finally rounds the corner, and almost misses the door. 

116\. 

The glass pane of the window is cool against his palm. Colt can hardly breathe through the wreckage in his chest.

Ellie is lying motionless between the starched sheets of her cot, the monitor flashing red in time with every heartbeat. She’s fast asleep, a sight that’s like a memory from another life. 

An angel under the white lights, her image is distorted behind the thick pane of glass. She’s never felt farther away. 

Then Colt pushes open the door, and it’s just Ellie, his Ellie, in a hospital bed- and suddenly everything is too close.

“Fuck.” 

The curse falls on deaf ears, Ellie’s chest rising and falling indifferently in her sleep. 

Colt somehow holds himself together long enough to make his way across the room. Always falling towards her, helpless to her gravity. 

He’s already seated at her bedside by the time he questions if the proximity is a good idea. Ellie hadn’t asked him here. She just forgot to take his off her emergency contact list. If it were under different circumstances, if she were conscious- she’d keep as far away from him as possible. He has no idea how she’ll react to seeing him- and if she still hates his guts as much as she had last time; close proximity probably isn’t the best way to find out.

But her skin is the lightest he’s ever seen, almost white- and the sheets tucked close around her shoulders make her look like a corpse. Colt has always been taught to trust nothing but his own senses, and the steady beeping of the heart rate monitor just isn’t enough. 

Tentatively, as if handling glass, he slips his hand over Ellie’s open palm. 

Just to feel the rhythm of her heartbeat against his skin. Just enough to ensure himself that she’s solid, and concrete, and alive. 

It was only for a moment, just long enough to calm the racing of his pulse. But then Ellie’s hand just barely tightens around his, and - God. He’s helpless. There’s nothing he could do to stop her. 

The minutes bleed into each other, fluid and viscous like honey. Time seems to speed up and slow down, completely resistant to Colt’s effort to keep track of the passing hours. He finds her medical charts locked inside the bedside cupboard, and reads them until the words burn into his eyelids. By the time the morning light starts to filter through the curtains, Colt’s vision is fading into black.

He wakes to the faint tapping of a staccato beat against his shoulder. 

Colt goes rigid as the night’s events come crashing down on him, replaying over in his head like a film-reel. It takes him a few seconds to register where he is, and he sits up fast, knocking his elbow against the bed frame. “Fuck, Ellie-” 

His eyes run over her, searching for some alarming reason that she might have for waking him. He finds nothing of concern- except maybe the fact that she doesn’t look alarmed at all, her eyes soft and golden in the morning light. Colt looks down to find their hands still interlocked. 

He looks back up to her face, almost apprehensive, waiting for those brown eyes to go cold.

The blow never comes. She just tilts her head back, appraising him. “You look tired.”

The sound of her voice sends a wave of relief stuttering through him, so strong that it hurts. He almost laughs with the force of it.

“Jesus, Ellie. You’re one to talk.”

The ghost of a smile crosses her face, but her eyes are far away.

Ellie is focused on their hands, fiddling absentmindedly with Colt’s fingers. “They told me you would come.” Her voice is small, as if there were ever reason for doubt, and that’s enough to break Colt open. 

“Where else would I be?” His voice is cracked as if he’d been shouting, but he doesn’t care because _she has to know. She had to know that he would come for her._

Ellie starts to respond, she’s interrupted with a coughing fit so harsh that Colt is pressing a glass of water to her mouth before he can fully process the action. 

She barely even wets her lips before she’s leaning back against the pillow. “Colt, I have to-” 

“ _Drink_.” His tone leaves no room for argument. Ellie rolls her eyes, and it’s all so familiar that it takes Colt a moment to breathe.

Once she’s half-finished the glass, she takes his wrist and guides the glass back to the bedside table. 

“I have to tell you something.”

“...Tell me later. It can wait.” It’s selfish, _he’s_ selfish- but whatever Ellie has to say, he’s just not strong enough to hear it yet. Not when it sounds so much like a preface to another goodbye. 

There’s a good chance this is the last time he’ll get to see her, and he wants to spend the time he’s got committing every last detail to memory. 

His attention can’t help but snag on the bruising beneath her eye, the IV and white bandages strapped across her chest. 

“Ellie,” Colt manages, his tone careful, measured. The blood on her lip is seeping into his vision. There’s a familiar creature stirring in his chest, seething in the itching of his fingers, the bitter taste of blood lust on his tongue. “Who did this to you?” 

Ellie must see the storm clouds brewing behind his gaze, because her expression goes stern. “It was just a crash, Colt. It was no one’s fault.”

Her intention is clear. _No penance, no revenge. No one pays for this._

The creature rears it’s head in protest, but Colt stifles it down, biting hard against his tongue. “Fine. But if I find out they were fucking around, or _drunk-”_

“Colt.” Ellie cuts him off like only she can. “Look at me.”

He resists at first, so she resorts to force, bringing her hand up to his chin and pulling him towards her gaze. She speaks slowly, carefully enunciating every word.

“There’s nothing you could have done.” 

He can’t help but marvel at how she always cuts to the heart of what he’s really thinking, what he can’t even bring himself to say.

Even when she’s wrong. “I could have been there.”

There’s nothing that she can say to that. Not when he’s the one who cut her out. They sit in silence for a moment, quieted by the burn of wounds that should have closed by now.

Of course she’s the first to take the leap, because she’s always been the bravest of the two of them, the one to look Colt in the eyes and dare him to jump.

“I missed you.”

He jumps in after her- because that’s all he’s ever known, because he’s never had another choice.

“I miss you too." He almost chokes on the words in his throat. “God, just- always. All the goddamn time.” 

He wants to screw his eyes shut- but every time his vision goes dark, he sees Ellie's car careening over the concrete barrier, smells it’s wreckage smoking on the ground.

“I’m sorry. I.. fuck. I’m sorry.” Those aren’t words that often fall from Colt Kaneko’s mouth, but when it comes to her- they come all too easily. They haven’t spent a day together that Colt didn’t bite back an apology for everything he’s done. 

“When I left, I thought I was protecting you. I thought that I could keep you safe, and now-” 

“Stop it.” Mercy’s eyes are bright with tears, and Colt’s always been shocked by how easily they go from honey to solid gold. “Just stop, okay? You can’t protect me from everything, and the harder you try, the further you push me away from you. I can’t take it, Colt-”

He opens his mouth to respond, but she’s just gaining momentum. 

“I don’t want to be trapped in a box, fucking cellophane wrapped from the rest of the world! That’s the reason I left my Dad in the first place- I want to live, _actually live,_ and I want to do it with you! I don’t care what happens, I don’t care-” 

Her chest is heaving beneath her bandages, the heart monitor beeping faster and faster- _too fast,_ and Colt does the only thing he can think of to bring her down. 

Ellie stills against his lips, cool, and chapped, and so soft that Colt wonders if he might need to be hospitalized himself. Her breaths stutter against him, and just as he pulls back- she pulls him in again, fingers winding tight and desperate into his hair.

Tasting her again feels like speaking his mother tongue- foreign and hauntingly familiar at once, something so deeply worked into his being that it could never be forgotten.

“It’s okay,” he swears, wishing he could pass on the assurance through their mouths. “You’re okay.” 

It’s just as much a comfort to him as it is to her- the knowledge that she’s _here_ , warm with the flutter of a fragile heart, safe and living beneath his hands.

He holds her knuckles to his lips, wishing desperately that he could breathe in all that hurt, all those months of isolation out from between her fingers. 

“I’m here now. I’ve got you, El. I swear I’ve got you.”

And maybe that’s enough.

Ellie’s still holding unto him like she’s afraid he’s going to disappear, and that’s enough to harden his resolve. He’s an idiot for ever leaving her, for ever doubting that the one who knows what’s best for her is anyone but herself. 

But he’s not making that mistake twice. They can’t waste a _day_ \- not a _second_ , without each other, because life is a fucking coin toss and there’s no knowing what’s coming next.

Colt’s prepared to handcuff himself to this bed if the paramedics ever make the mistake of trying to pull him away from her. 

He knows where he belongs- right by Ellie’s side, and nothing is ever going to pull him from her grasp again.


End file.
